Dreams Only Last for a Night
by PaintedinAllColors
Summary: Eridan Ampora and Sollux Captor, strung along by the red string of fate, by the dark twine of hate. Their love story, a dream borne upon the wings of a hopeful infinity. But all birds must land, and all things must die.
1. Chapter 1

Oh hey, it's my first Homestuck fic when I should be working on several other fics :3

Enjoy.

~Kimi

* * *

"I'll be fine even though I'm not always right  
I can count on the sun to shine  
Dedication takes a lifetime  
But dreams only last for a night"

~Stay Awake, All Time Low

Prologue

**June, 2012**

Something wet trails across his face, warm from the wavering sky he thinks is gray but isn't quite sure-it's just so hazy, too difficult to focus properly on the shifting realities before him. The sky is crying, he thinks. Don't cry, he wants to say, not just to the sky, but to elusive memory just barely past the line of intangible and to the very real wetness against his face. It must be pouring, spreading to his abdomen, only rain doesn't fall that slowly, that warm. Or does it?

His tongue is heavy, numb, slow, different from his usual drawled 'w's and 'v's, this drags even his thoughts out, desultory phrases floating suspended in the ocean of his mind that he tries desperately to connect.

A name, a color, a ribbon of gold twisting into a circle around his finger, liquid sunlight and happiness and a lingering sensation of warmth and safety. A promise seared into his very heart, only his vision is fading, the gray is growing, and he can no longer read the words or form the coherent phrases to repeat their vow of eternity that hangs maddeningly out of reach. He remembers a promise of forever linked to the golden glimmer sliding off his finger, sinking further into the murky depths that seemed cold at first but now embrace him. As he fades, as his eyes slide shut and as lips tinge blue relinquish that single precious breath, his mouth is filled with the taste of honey.

* * *

**June, 2012**

When the phone rings, staccato noise drilling into the thick layer of silence, Sollux Captor is in deep slumber. He wades out of his dream reluctantly, part of him still clinging to the paradise of sleep, the respite of a fleeting, sweet dream. His eyes crack open, mismatched brown and blue that he has yet to be comfortable with around anyone but Eridan.

Eridan.

He practically flies out of the bed, the vestiges of sleep completely dissipated, scattered by the thought of his…his Eridan. Sollux smiles, still savoring the thought even after this much time, a yawn splitting his face as he shuffles towards the phone, its shrill, unsettling ring, like the cry of a vulture, shattering the silence.

"Tholl-Sollux Captor," he corrects himself, cursing internally in frustration. He hates his lisp with a burning, fiery passion; even now, he can feel his cheeks tint in embarrassment.

But when the person on the other line says, "I'm so sorry," his mood collapses, implodes into a black hole in the center of the place where the bruised, mangled thing that passes for his heart is. The thing that Eridan managed to bandage up, to slowly heal the lacerations and kiss away the scar tsissue-it just falls apart then and there, shredding itself into a thousand pieces that fly through his bloodstream, glass-sharp shards he wishes would just kill him now.

No.

"W-what?" he manages to choke out, and his tongue stumbling over the 'w's just like Eridan does-did, now, some part of him supposes idly-is familiar enough to shut him down entirely.

"Your husband is dead. I'm sorry…," he tones out the voice after it says that, because _sorry_ doesn't even begin to cover this heart-shattering grief that covers him like a layer of ice.

Dead.

Images flash through his mind, a girl wasting away in a room too sterile, her skin soon taking on the pallor of the room, the light in her eyes dwindling away. Tubes, so many tubes that she couldn't talk and even a month after they'd been taken out after she was supposedly healthy, she still couldn't talk, refused to look at him refused to go outside and laugh and smile and-

Sollux takes a deep, haggard breath.

Eridan is gone. Aradia is gone.

_And I didn't even tell him I loved him. _


	2. Chapter 2

So, this came out faster than expected. Thank you, lone reviewer, and here's the actual chapters happening :D

I'm not sure when the next one will be out, in all honesty, cuz I'm absolutely atrocious with deadlines and any form of consistency.

I don't own Homestuck (obviously). 

Enjoy,

~Kimi

* * *

Chapter 1

**September, 2002**

The first time Eridan Ampora and Sollux Captor meet, it is a warm September day harboring promise of the bitter ice to come, a faint smudge on the horizon and skeptical news forecasts the only signs of a storm to come. The college is small, smaller than he expected as he unloads his scant belongings to one half of a bare white room begging for its own history.

A seemingly messy pile of clothes in the corner, forlorn and crumpled; a brand new laptop sitting proudly on a large desk with a chair that looks as if it is the only comfortable thing in the room, despite being worn weary and missing a handle; a ziplock bag full of toiletries in the bathroom; new sheets on a soft mattress he knows he won't use much. Those are the things that Sollux Captor brings with him to Forrester University in Oregon.

He catches a glance of his reflection in the mirror of the communal bathroom and cringes immediately, fingers fumbling to slam tinted glasses back on to hide the smudges beneath his hideously mismatched eyes-

("I love your eyes" laughter tinkles from the tree, blending with the gentle breeze toying with her long hair)

He grits his teeth to prevent the scream from tearing its way out of his throat, a monster made of claws and anguish and grief and tears he will never cry. His face smooths itself out automatically, contorted, grotesque torment vanishing with practiced ease as he leaves the bathroom slouching, giving any who breach the caveat of his slouch and disinterest, his admittedly cadaverous figure, a brief nod and a smile that is more like the fierce baring of teeth than anything else.

Chair, desk, computer. Sollux Captor thrives in this routine, this action that will never change no matter where he is. Comforting clicking of the keyboard keys, he loses himself in the code, immerses himself in a labyrinth of his own making-a labyrinth to which he has not yet found the key. Time is relative, elastic, in his solitude, but he doesn't mind it flowing around him, parting like the river before a rock. If time ignores him, he can ignore it, and he can ignore the memories that always threaten to rise, a geyser bubbling inside him.

He codes for hours, a small part of him notes the time that passes idly, the rest utterly focused on the lines of ones and zeroes, a world entirely of his own reduced to the simplest of terms.

"It's fuckin' dark in here," a voice notes, jolting him out of his universe. Accented voice, slightly nasal like the speaker has a bad cold; where is this guy even from?

Sollux spins around, flinching at the piercing beam of light shining through the door.

"Are you my roommate?" the voice continues on conversationally, Sollux still blinking, disconcerted, trying to chase the spots dancing along his vision.

"Yeth-Yes," he corrects himself, squinting into the light through his glasses and cursing his lisp, a vestige of a childhood speech impediment he hasn't quite gotten rid of yet. "Who're you?"

"Eridan Ampora."

Eridan Ampora is tall, lanky, pretentious. A scarf wound twice around his neck even though it's hot out, pale with a smattering of freckles and dark hair streaked violet, too-big glasses Sollux knows will slide down his nose-and he doubts Ampora actually needs them-, lean legs clothed in ridiculous striped genes.

"Sollux Captor," he responds, turning back around.

"W-well aren't you gonna help me unpack?" he drawls, tripping on the 'w' slightly in a soft drawl. Sollux decides that his accent is decidedly Scottish, although he can't imagine why he's here in Oregon.

"No." He keeps it short, succinct, mostly because he'd caught a glimpse of piles of suitcases outside the door.

"The least ye could do is help me out," Sollux can see the scowl tilting his lips down as Ampora's voice grows acerbic and more accented.

"The least I could do is nothing, and I'm already doing that," he replies, rummaging through the tangle of cords for his headphones.

"Tch," Ampora scoffs, slamming the door open and just starting to drag the suitcases in himself. He can hear the other muttering to himself unintelligibly as he hauls in at least five suitcases, and Sollux can't help but to wonder if Ampora packed his entire fucking house to come here.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sollux sees him taking out camera equipment, sketchpads and charcoals, textbooks that vaguely look like either science or history, and several scarves-same pattern, different color-; all the while grumbling. He can't focus like this, and won't even make the attempt. He won't be able to get back to the code now, won't be able to drown himself in the numbers anymore, not today, at least.

"I'm going out," he says sharply, navigating around the luggage littering the floor. "Explore the campus." As an afterthought, he adds, "I'll bring pizza for dinner."

There's no response; Eridan Ampora appears to be completely ignoring him, probably miffed that he didn't help him unpack.

"I don't eat pizza," comes a quietly sneered response from Eridan Ampora's hunched over form as he folds clothes precisely, neatly. Sollux is slightly repulsed by the other's seeming cleanliness, glancing over at his side of the room, already a mess, self-consciously.

"Fine then," he shrugs, slipping out the door and into the surprisingly deserted hallway of the dorm.

* * *

**September 2002**

Eridan Ampora is annoyed, tired, and jetlagged as he unpacked. It's sweltering hot in the room, and as soon as his roommate leaves, slouching and unpleasant, his presence is not missed, he opens the single window on his side of the room, leaning against it. He is having some difficulty getting over the fact that he'd been denied assistance and was forced to unpack the entirety of his luggage, but he feels an effervescent satisfaction from having completed the frankly arduous task.

He feels strange, as if he is drifting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, cut loose of the driving force of the current that has carried him and pushed him forward all his life. His father had yelled at him before he left, shouted things that should have left unsaid, but as he'd told Fef before the flight here with a sneer that was all bravado, ol' Dualscar's been waitin' to say those things for a long, long time. Eridan, personally, feels content in this tiny university as far from his father and his brother has he can get without going to Asia.

He sighs, enjoying the quiet but not the atrocious, tangled chaos that is his roommate's-no, Sollux Captor's-side of the room. Stark white walls, a new beginning in this small place to which he has never been.

"I'm free," he whispers to himself, chuckling quietly and pulling out his phone-one he'd bought for himself despite his father's offers of better models, a violet Razor he's overly proud of, especially because it matches Fef's tyrian purple phone.

_fef im all movved in wwanna come vvisit? _ He texts her quickly, fingers dancing across the number pad with practiced ease.

_Buoy am I glad you moved in! )(e)(e)(e! shore i would but ive got swim practice_

_havve fun wwith that one sea you later then_

_YOU US-ED A FIS)( PUN_

_i reely did_

_)(e)(e)(e ttyl _

_wwill do_

He almost sends, 'is that a promise?' instead, but stops himself just in time. This isn't the sort of thing he wants to do over text message, even if Fef is his absolute best friend and their trust is implicit.

Eridan remembers when they used to play together, swimming in azure waves that were sometimes cold and sometimes warm but rarely hot, foam capped waves crashing over their heads as they screamed in delight.

("I bet I can beat you this time, Fef!" and he never won, at first because let her win, always had and always would, and later on because she practiced hard and outpaced him easily)

He sighs, the sound blending with the soft wind outside flowing into the hot room. Eridan misses those days when everything was easy, when it was all simple. When his mother had still been there, before the stepbitch had come into the picture.

Moving came naturally to him; his father had encouraged him to apply everywhere. And Eridan didn't mind leaving, fleeing across the ocean and across expanses of land to this tiny place, in the middle of his sophomore year at Harvard. They'd been happy to have him, he laughs quietly, drily. That one's a first, right? Happy because he came from Harvard, and with him came Daddy's money.

"Tch," he scoffs, reclining on the new purple sheets-a nice touch, he reflects absently. "At least Captor doesn't like me, also a first." Although, he doesn't mind that as much as he should, especially since he's used to people hating him, spitting in his face, because he's just that little rich boy so far out of his league only in an Ivy League because of daddy's money because it's never possible for him to do it on his own merit-

He stops those thoughts in their tracks.

" 'It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live'," he mumbles, glancing at the Harry Potter memorabilia arranged neatly in a corner. His lips turn down in disgust as his eyes wander back over to Sollux's side of the room and the chaotic state it's in.

Eridan Ampora doesn't quite know if he likes Sollux Captor or not, and he reminds himself not to judge based on the fact that the other appears to be a lazy, messy, computer-obsessed recluse with no respect for first impressions or the labors of other human beings. He listens to nothing but the laughter and babble of chatter drifting in through the open window, the ululating of the wind and the whisper of the trees, and the soft hum of his own thoughts drifting in and out, and shifting into the intangible as he falls effortlessly from this world to the other, blanketed by sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

So I have no idea why this ended like it did but here. Enjoy. 

~Kimi

* * *

Chapter 2

**October 31, 2002**

The twilight is blustery, wind ripping leaves barely clinging on to their dry, wizened branches, which, though dead, remain home, away; it isn't as cold as he expected it would be, and certainly not as rainy as-

Eridan pushes the thought away immediately, snips the synapse connection before he can complete it. No. A frown graces his face, eyes tinted purple by contacts he'd bought years ago and always wanted to wear, darken as if a shadow settled over them. He tells himself that it's simply because it's Hallow's Eve, fools himself into thinking that all the magic that his belief in was beaten away, smothered by kicks and cruel words and the sharp knife of disappointment, is real once more.

He lets his gaze wander through the room even though he's memorized it already. His impeccable half: clean, violet sheets he adores made without a single crease, the books lining his bookcase neat and straight (in order of subject, then author, because of course it couldn't be any other way-yet Eridan still finds himself glancing at the lone suitcase he hadn't yet unpacked, and he knows exactly what's in it, and it's bothering him, but unpacking it means he loses and no, Eridan is not willing to lose). He sucks in a deep breath, drags his eyes away to inspect the other half of the room-and, as always, his lips curl ever-so-slightly downward at the sight of the atrocious mess. Clothes strewn across the floor, most of which he is certain have not been washed since September, and supposes the lack of smell could only be due to the use of copious amounts of air freshener; a tangle of wires and cords at the base of the desk, which is the only new thing on that side of the room; yellow and black sheets a rumpled mess he aches to just smooth out on the bed.

And then there is Sollux Captor himself, sitting at the desk littered with fast-food wrappers and paper plates (courtesy of friends Eridan hadn't been sure existed at first, considering his mind had only jumped to fairies at the sight of their mysterious appearance). He's hunched over in the exact way that Eridan had learned never to sit, his hair sticking up in all directions, eyes veiled by thick lenses Eridan is sure he can't possibly see anything through stare intently at the blur of number racing across the screen.

Eridan Ampora is not sure if he's spoken more than a few words to his roommate, when he thinks of it. And think of it is what he does; it's a distraction, far more preferable to the thoughts that would come unbidden to his unoccupied mind. Thoughts that seem to find their way in anyway

("Hurry up, mermaid-boy I wvant to get all the candy, ya hear?" His brother's voice, nasal and cruel and not yet thickened to grit and gravel by the cigarettes he now smokes)

Eridan Ampora focuses very hard on a crack in the wall that bridges the invisible line between their respective halves of the room.

One breath, then another. He counts the beats of his heart, the rapid clacking of the keyboard under Captor's fingers. And then his phone rings. He scrambles to answer it, ignoring the heated glare of his roommate as he flips it open.

"Hey Fef," Eridan is hoping he can keep the excitement out of his voice; he hasn't seen her properly in the entirety of the time he's been here, not wanting her to see the awful mess or meet the one responsible from it. He meets Captor's glare with a heated look of his own.

"Sooo I was thinking, and be-reef me, frond, I had the best idea!"

"Continue on, Fef, I'm intrigued now."

"We should go," cue the dramatic pause, peppered with light giggles on the other end, "trick or treating."

"Fef, we're both twenty." But Eridan can feel a smile making its way onto his face.

"Whale…I just thought-," and because he can't bear to hear such disappointment in her voice, he chuckles and relents.

"Of course you did. I'm in," he can't help but laugh softly at her squeal of joy and breathless promise that she'd be at his dorm in no less than five glubbin minutes.

"Who was that?" Eridan nearly jumps at the sound of the other's voice, slightly raspy with disuse, trailing with a slight lisp well masked.

"Friend a mine," he answers carelessly, pulling out a lavender shirt with ease. "She's comin over in fi-," He stops. Looks at Sollux's side of the room.

"In when?" Captor presses sarcastically. "Fi isn't exactly a number, dipshit."

"It is if you're referrin' to the Greek symbol, which also stands for the Golden Ration, fuckass," Eridan rolls his eyes, beginning to button up his shirt. "Anyway, like I was about to say before you so rudely interrupted me, is you need to clean your shit up."

"Why the fuck should I have to clean my shit up because you're having a friend over?" Captor stands up from his chair, practically snarling.

"Because Fef's a fuckin lady, not like you'd know anything about those, an' there's a certain degree of class she's used to, alright?" Eridan is trying his best to explain it quickly and concisely so the other can just attempt to sort through his piles of junk. Or at the very least, hide them somewhere.

"Tch, I'm not cleaning up just because you want to impress some girl. Fucking deal with it," he rolls his eyes-or at least that's what Eridan thinks he does.

"I'm not tryin' to impress her, you fuckin' moron, I just don't want her to be blinded or lose her sense of smell 'cause of that hideous mess you've got there. I'm protectin' her," he changes his mind, starts unbuttoning the shirt. It'll look better open with his white T-shirt underneath.

"Sure you aren't," Captor scoffs, stepping through the undergrowth of wires with ridiculous ease. Eridan smirks in relief, finally sure he'd gotten the other to see the light.

"Well if you want it clean so badly," he looks up at Eridan and grins, and Eridan would be lying if that spiteful smile didn't send shivers down his spine, "you can fucking clean it yourself, Loser Prince." Sollux raises a leg slowly, deliberately, and does the unthinkable. He kicks a pile of clothes close to the border between their halves, and it comes cascading down; dirty shirts and underwear and CDs trapped in between, some of it landing _in his side of the room_.

"You fuckin' asshole!" Eridan is seething mad, anger bubbling up unexpected like lava breaking through the craggy slumber of a dormant volcano. And Sollux Captor simply smirks victoriously, tilts his head back in an outrageous display of fuckin fake innocence, as if to ask, 'what's the problem, mate?'

"I'll-,"

"Hi Eridan!" His rage is cut off immediately by those two words; he turns, cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment at the state of the room-and not only his asshole roommate's half, but, thanks to aforementioned asshole roommate, his own half too.

"Hey, Fef." She giggles and waves, and he's overwhelmed with just how good it is to see her as she extends her arms and crashes into him, a tumble of long curls and dimpled smiles and freckles that smells a little like chlorine and a lot like lavender. He hugs back, and it's just like coming home again, except this is better than home, far better than the miserable place across the ocean from whence he fled.

* * *

**October 31, 2002**

Sollux Captor is incredibly nervous now, his fingers tapping out code on an imaginary keyboard imprinted on stained and dirty jeans he's suddenly very sure he's been wearing for too long. He curses Eridan in his mind-wants to stop doing that, because he knows it's not Ampora's fault, even if he's the most pretention dick he's ever had the pleasure to meet-but doesn't stop because really, Eridan is the only one he can blame for this. He's certainly not going to blame himself, after all.

He just didn't expect Ampora's visitor to be Feferi Peixes, rather than some girl (or guy, he really would have leaned more towards 'guy') with wide, glassy eyes and track lines like deathly tattoos tracing her veins. And he certainly didn't expect her to laugh like the choirs of the angels themselves and give Eridan Ampora, of all people, a hug.

He really, really wishes he'd cleaned up his half of the room.

"So Fef," Ampora asks casually, sitting cross-legged on the floor in overly tight jeans that make Sollux wonder certain things, and then stop that train of thought before it leaves the station.

"Frond, I'm telling you. This is the GREATEST IDEA EVER!" Feferi stops to pull out a few items from a bag neither had noticed was there. "You wouldn't be-reef this, but Meenah and Cronus still kept all our old stuff."

Sollux has no idea what she's referencing, but all he knows is that she flashed him a quick and dazzling smile as she walked in.

"Are you thinkin' what I think you're thinkin', Fef?" He narrows his eyes, but there's a smile scrawled across Ampora's face that tells Sollux that he'd do anything for this girl.

"Maaaaybe," she giggles, raising a delicate hand to brush hair out of her face. "Do you still want to? I _know_ you said you were done with all this fishy business, but I thought…." Feferi trails off, glancing at Eridan with wide, hopeful eyes. Sollux tries to suppress a laugh.

"Fin. I did say I was in, right?" he gives her a small smile, and it's sort of amazing how different it is from the other scant times Ampora has smiled. It's as if this is a smile only reserved for her.

Feferi cheers in happiness, hauling out a purple mass of cloth that could resemble a cape, a pair of horns jagged like lightning, and a rather large container of what looks like gray facepaint. Finally, she carefully sets down a blue rifle, realistic but for the fact that it's a bright cobalt, and three pieces of shimmering gold metal that Sollux knows will form a trident when assembled.

"Wait," he says slowly, speaking for the first time. "That looks awfully familiar."

"Reely?" Feferi looks at him, tilting her head to the side as Ampora takes out two pairs of attachable fins from the bag.

"Yeth-Yes," he corrects himself instantly, flushing. "I used to play a game, and there were a few characters dressed like that." He thinks back to his gaming days, when he was a teen and not into Minecraft quite yet, but completely obsessed with League of Legends and a less popular sGrub.

"You played sGrub?" Ampora turns to look at him, looking faintly surprised.

Sollux nods, fidgeting slightly.

"That's KRILLIANT!" Feferi nearly shouts, her face lighting up. "You can come with us, right? Whale, I wouldn't want to force you, but it shore would be great if you cod." She looks at him, gives him the same hopeful look that she'd given Ampora, and Sollux knows he won't be able to deny her.

"Alright," he relents, giving up a nonexistent fight and shooting a smirk at the obvious dismay and annoyance arranged on Ampora's face. "I've got my stuff…somewhere." Sollux stands up, turning to face the mounds of clothes and bypassing all of them, wading through the veritable lake to his closet. He hasn't worn it, let alone seen it in years, but he couldn't throw it away, not after-

("Sollux, darling, I've finished it!" She holds up a black and yellow outfit, stylized as if it had simply emerged from his imagination)

It's the only item hung up in his closet, shrouded neatly in plastic because he can't bring himself to wear it, but he can't bring himself to throw it away, either.

For the first time in nearly two years, Sollux Captor takes it out, unwraps the plastic barring himself and anyone else from touching it.

"I…used to be this character called the Psionic," he explains, biting his lip to keep his voice from shaking. "It's been a while."

"Psionic…," he can hear them both say the name with wonder, turning it over in their mouths.

"I used to be the Condesce," Feferi says quietly. Eridan murmurs something, and out of the corner of his eyes, he can see the other carefully attaching a fin to her.

"I wwas Orphaner Dualscar," Ampora chuckles drily, his voice slipping slightly into an unfamiliar cadence.

"No fucking way," Sollux whirls around, staring at Ampora in the eye.

"Yes way," he waggles his eyebrows with a laugh.

"Well, I can see it. Dualscar was a pretention athhole too," he shrugs it off, wishing he'd chosen better words, because dammit he can hear the lisp in his voice, childish and pitiful.

"Dualscar wwas the shit," Eridan sneers, but the benom in his voice has lessened considerably. Sollux turns around to see him fixing horns to his head expertly, slicking his hair back with practiced ease, until it stands still, with a few strands spiked stylishly. The epitome of pretentious rumpling, Sollux thinks to himself as he takes out his own horns, two per side, and new glasses tinted red and blue. He chuckles at the LARPing memories, thinking of Karkat and the ever-present and frankly creepy Gamzee, and Tavros with his stutter and wheelchair. Man, he misses those guys-they'd been a rather dysfunctional bunch, especially when Terezi showed up as she was prone to do, and with Spiderbitch in tow, but they'd also been his closest friends. Sollux feels a pang of loss, of sadness, at the thought as he makes his way to the bathroom to change into his costume. If it wasn't for Feferi, he knows that he wouldn't have so much as looked at the Psionic costume again. And he doesn't know whether to thank her for that or not.

* * *

**October 31, 2002**

Eridan Ampora feels powerful, in control. He smirks, posing slightly in the mirror, smoothing out imaginary creases in his immaculate costume, adjusting his fins ever so slightly. He is fucking gorgeous, if he does say so himself.

"An' believe me, I do say so," he chuckles to himself, his accent slipping as he falls back into the persona of Orphaner Dualscar.

"Stop talkin to yoself," Fef intones from beside him as she fluffs her hair, curls sprayed to stay, horns perfectly in place, tyrian and black bodysuit clinging to her every curve. Eridan sincerely hopes she doesn't plan on going to the rather rowdy party going on a few dorms away dressed like that.

"Make me, Your Imperious Condescencion," he jokes, curling his lip in a motion familiar yet strange. All of a sudden, Eridan Ampora realizes that despite the fins and horns and ridiculous costume, he looks almost exactly like his father with that expression. He sits down on his bed, looks at his hands. They're shaking, and he's suddenly choking on something intangible, and he can't help but remember the last time he wore this costume-

(Blows raining down like huge chunks of hail, thunder of rage and disappointment rumbling in the sky, lancing bitter lightning of fear)

"Eridan. You don't have to, you know," Feferi places a delicate hand ringed with bracelets of heavy gold on his shoulder, fingers cold with the metal of the rings she wears.

"I knoww," he whispers, his voice a rasp in his throat. "Do you mind if I just stay in?"

"Course knot," she laughs lightly, giving him a kiss on the forehead just as the door creaks open. Captor's standing there, a dumbfounded expression scrawled all over his thin face.

"I'm ready," he says uncomfortably. Eridan looks up, closing his eyes briefly to regain composure, putting on a mask just like he was taught. Captor's clothed exactly like his character, and Eridan pauses for a moment to appreciate the accuracy of his costume despite the total asshole wearing it. It suits him, he thinks absently.

"I don't feel too well," Eridan lies easily, reclining onto his bed. "You two can go on ahead." He even manages to dredge up a smile-_see how much better I am at this, father?_ he thinks bitterly-that he knows is reassuring, happy, but weak.

"Alright," Fef says with forced cheer. "C'mon Sole, the night wakes for us!" He chuckles briefly at her puns, waving a goodbye as she practically drags a confused Sollux out of the room.

When he goes to the bathroom later on after visiting the pool, Eridan finds that the razors have mysteriously vanished.

* * *

**October 31, 2013**

"What wath all of that about?" Sollux Captor asks, utterly bemused as Feferi Peixes tugs him along the corridor rather insistently, her grip stronger than he'd have expected.

"Nothing. Eridan's just prone to bouts of seasickness," she shrugs it off easily, and he is left wondering if that's a fish pun or not. "Whale, actual sickness, you sea." Question answered, then.

"Oh," is all he manages to say in response to that. The memory of her lips on Ampora's forehead-Ampora, of all people-fills him with acidic envy curled angrily in the pit of his stomach. "You guys are...close." Close is a safe word, a word he settles on.

"Shore are~," she giggles merrily. "Now come on, I can't be-reef the amount of people over there...I was thinking of going but now it's waterever."

"If you want to go, I guess," SOllux shrugs, hoping she decides not to. He has, after all, never truly been comfortable in crowds.

"Maybe knot," she makes a face, and Sollux Captor is slowly realizing that there is a distinct and terrifying possibility that he could fall for Feferi Peixes.

"We could just, I don't know, hang out or something?" He offers tentatively.

She nods, smiling. "I'd like that a lot."


End file.
